The head of the Ministry of Agriculture of the Russian Federation, Alexander Tkachev, at a meeting with Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev on Wednesday, proposed a mechanism for transferring commercial loans from farmers to soft loans.
"The Ministry of Agriculture proposes to allow the transfer of commercial loans at a preferential rate, provided that the tax arrears do not exceed 5% of the borrower's net assets," his press secretary said. According to him, the borrower is obliged to provide the bank with a copy of the payments to pay off the debt. Opening the meeting, Dmitry Medvedev suggested considering the possibility of converting commercial loans into concessional ones. As A. Tkachev said, the agro-industrial complex of Russia in 2017 attracted almost 8 thousand soft loans for 650 billion rubles. “The mechanism of concessional lending allowed agricultural producers not to divert working capital for servicing loans before receiving reimbursement from the budget, as it was before. As a result, we got a real credit boom, ”he said, adding that out of the total amount of loans, 450 billion rubles fall on investment loans, which is 1,5 times more than a year ago.
According to the minister, 54 greenhouse complexes with a capacity of 480 thousand tons of vegetables per year, 91 dairy complexes with a capacity of 500 thousand tons of milk per year will be built for the loans received. In addition, 108 processing enterprises will be modernized, more than 4 thousand units of agricultural machinery, including 1,5 thousand combines and 415 tractors, will be purchased.
A. Tkachev also said that farmers received soft loans worth 41 billion rubles, subsidies for which amounted to 1,2 billion rubles. 25 billion rubles of this amount falls on investment loans. According to the minister, during the year, the agency tuned in the mechanism of soft loans. In particular, the regions were given the authority to determine the volume of lending in priority areas, the maximum amount of preferential short-term loan per borrower, the share of preferential loans for farmers. At the same time, he recalled that at the federal level it was fixed that this share should not be less than 20%.
Source: http://agroobzor.ru